Robb Concert
Save the Date
Sunday 30 March 2025 7:30pm
53rd Robb Symposium Series
Annual Robb Concert
Episcopal Cathedral of St. John
FREE Admission
all ages family-friendly community event
Featured composer John Donald Robb
Featured performer Maxine Thévenot
Maxine Thévenot is known for her skillful, musical playing, inventive concert programming, and passionate, informed conducting. She combines a profound commitment to her liturgical work as a cathedral musician with guest conducting, solo and collaborative organ recitals, and thrives on co-creating community experiences.
Sunday 30 March 2025 7:30pm
53rd Robb Symposium Series
Annual Robb Concert
Episcopal Cathedral of St. John
FREE Admission
all ages family-friendly community event
Featured composer John Donald Robb
Featured performer Maxine Thévenot
Maxine Thévenot is known for her skillful, musical playing, inventive concert programming, and passionate, informed conducting. She combines a profound commitment to her liturgical work as a cathedral musician with guest conducting, solo and collaborative organ recitals, and thrives on co-creating community experiences.
Her musical career has taken her throughout Great Britain and North America and to many major European venues in Germany, France, Italy, Austria, Hungary, and the Czech Republic. In the summer of 2024, she will make her Icelandic début performing at the Hallgrímskirkja in Reykjavík. Maxine’s upcoming 2024 performance schedule includes solo recitals, collaborative projects, guest conducting, and clinician work.
First-prize winner of the 2000 Canada Bach National Organ Competition, Maxine has also broadcast for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, National Public Radio, and Pipedreams. Dr. Thévenot has been a featured performer and lecturer at national and regional conventions of the American Guild of Organists and the Royal Canadian College of Organists. She serves as a competition jury member and examiner for the American Guild of Organists and serves on the editorial board of the Association of Anglican Musicians. She has performed for Vice President Kamala Harris as part of her New Mexican state visit in October 2022. In March 2023 she organized and performed on a unique concert which included the New Mexican premiere of Diné composer Raven Chacon’s Pulitzer prize-winning Voiceless Mass.
Canon Maxine Thévenot serves as Director of Cathedral Music & Organist at the Episcopal Cathedral of St. John, Albuquerque, NM. She is also the Artistic Director of an extensive community outreach ministry, Friends of Cathedral Music. Recognized for her excellence as a recording artist, Maxine has released 17 recordings on Raven CD.
A highly sought-after and regarded choral conductor, chorus master, and guest clinician, Dr. Maxine Thévenot the Founding and Artistic Director of Polyphony: Voices of New Mexico, the state’s first professional resident vocal ensemble. She serves as an adjunct faculty member at the University of New Mexico, where she teaches pipe organ. She previously taught music theory and music history, and for 15 years was Director of the UNM Women’s Chorus, Las Cantantes.
A published composer with Paraclete Press, her compositions have been premiered at several Cambridge and Oxford colleges, parish churches, and cathedrals in the UK, and subsequently performed across the UK and North America.
A native of Saskatchewan, Canada, Maxine Thévenot received her Bachelor’s degree in Music Education from the University of Saskatchewan (with Distinction); and her Master of Music and Doctor of Musical Arts degrees from the Manhattan School of Music. She was twice awarded the Bronson Ragan Award at Manhattan School of Music for ‘outstanding ability in organ performance’. Maxine is an Associate of the Royal Canadian College of Organists and the Royal Conservatory of Music, Toronto, and was made an Honorary Fellow of the National College of Music, London, UK in 2006 for her “services to music.”
“Thévenot's direction invariably shapes the music with illuminating and often profound effect, sculpting each phrase with intelligence and understanding.” — Albuquerque Journal
Here is Maxine Thévenot performing Praeludium in D, BuxWV 139 by Dietrich Buxtehude and Pièce d'Orgue, BWV 572 by J.S. Bach on the Reuter organ at the Episcopal Cathedral of St. John, Albuquerque, NM.
First-prize winner of the 2000 Canada Bach National Organ Competition, Maxine has also broadcast for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, National Public Radio, and Pipedreams. Dr. Thévenot has been a featured performer and lecturer at national and regional conventions of the American Guild of Organists and the Royal Canadian College of Organists. She serves as a competition jury member and examiner for the American Guild of Organists and serves on the editorial board of the Association of Anglican Musicians. She has performed for Vice President Kamala Harris as part of her New Mexican state visit in October 2022. In March 2023 she organized and performed on a unique concert which included the New Mexican premiere of Diné composer Raven Chacon’s Pulitzer prize-winning Voiceless Mass.
Canon Maxine Thévenot serves as Director of Cathedral Music & Organist at the Episcopal Cathedral of St. John, Albuquerque, NM. She is also the Artistic Director of an extensive community outreach ministry, Friends of Cathedral Music. Recognized for her excellence as a recording artist, Maxine has released 17 recordings on Raven CD.
A highly sought-after and regarded choral conductor, chorus master, and guest clinician, Dr. Maxine Thévenot the Founding and Artistic Director of Polyphony: Voices of New Mexico, the state’s first professional resident vocal ensemble. She serves as an adjunct faculty member at the University of New Mexico, where she teaches pipe organ. She previously taught music theory and music history, and for 15 years was Director of the UNM Women’s Chorus, Las Cantantes.
A published composer with Paraclete Press, her compositions have been premiered at several Cambridge and Oxford colleges, parish churches, and cathedrals in the UK, and subsequently performed across the UK and North America.
A native of Saskatchewan, Canada, Maxine Thévenot received her Bachelor’s degree in Music Education from the University of Saskatchewan (with Distinction); and her Master of Music and Doctor of Musical Arts degrees from the Manhattan School of Music. She was twice awarded the Bronson Ragan Award at Manhattan School of Music for ‘outstanding ability in organ performance’. Maxine is an Associate of the Royal Canadian College of Organists and the Royal Conservatory of Music, Toronto, and was made an Honorary Fellow of the National College of Music, London, UK in 2006 for her “services to music.”
“Thévenot's direction invariably shapes the music with illuminating and often profound effect, sculpting each phrase with intelligence and understanding.” — Albuquerque Journal
Here is Maxine Thévenot performing Praeludium in D, BuxWV 139 by Dietrich Buxtehude and Pièce d'Orgue, BWV 572 by J.S. Bach on the Reuter organ at the Episcopal Cathedral of St. John, Albuquerque, NM.
John Donald Robb (1892-1989) led a rich and varied life as an attorney, composer, arts educator, and folk song collector and preservationist. He composed an impressive body of work including symphonies, concertos, sonatas, chamber and other instrumental music, choral works, songs, and arrangements of folk songs, two operas, including Little Jo, a musical comedy, Joy Comes to Deadhorse, and more than 65 electronic works. Robb’s orchestral works have been played by many major orchestras in the United States and abroad under noted conductors, such as Hans Lange, Maurice Bonney, Maurice Abravanel, Leonard Slatkin, Gilberto Orellano, Yoshimi Takeda, Guillermo Figueroa, James Richards and Franz Vote.
Here is John Donald Robb's Symphony No. 1, Op. 16 performed by the Chamber Orchestra of Albuquerque, David Oberg Music Director and Conductor, March 1988. This was the first performance of the complete Symphony. The Elegy (with cello obligato) was recorded circa 1979 by the Chamber Orchestra of Albuquerque and was released on Opus One label Number Fifty-one (Max Schubel, owner and founder). The Elegy was composed shortly after World War II and was dedicated to the soldiers, sailors, and airmen who gave their lives in that war.
Here is John Donald Robb's Symphony No. 1, Op. 16 performed by the Chamber Orchestra of Albuquerque, David Oberg Music Director and Conductor, March 1988. This was the first performance of the complete Symphony. The Elegy (with cello obligato) was recorded circa 1979 by the Chamber Orchestra of Albuquerque and was released on Opus One label Number Fifty-one (Max Schubel, owner and founder). The Elegy was composed shortly after World War II and was dedicated to the soldiers, sailors, and airmen who gave their lives in that war.
Artistic Directors
Karola Obermüller’s composing, described by the New York Times as "hyperkinetic music”, is constantly in search of the unknown. After obtaining composition degrees in Nuremberg, Saarbrücken, and the University Mozarteum Salzburg, her sense of rhythm and form was forever changed by studying Carnatic and Hindustani classical music in Chennai and Delhi, India.
She has received commissions from the National Endowment for the Arts, Fromm Music Foundation, Ensemble Modern, International Contemporary Ensemble, Theater Bielefeld, Theater Bonn, Theater und Orchester Heidelberg, Staatstheater Nürnberg, Nouvel Ensemble Moderne, Bayerischer Rundfunk, Saarländischer Rundfunk, and the Ernst von Siemens Music Foundation. She has been a visiting artist at ZKM, Deutsche Akademie Rom, Centro Tedesco di studi Veneziani, Akademie Schloss Solitude, and IRCAM.
Since receiving a doctorate from Harvard University, Obermüller has taught composition and co-directed the composition area at the University of New Mexico. Her music can be heard on CD (WERGO) and online at karolaobermueller.net.
Here is Karola Obermüller's Dehnung (2020) for daegeum, koto, gayageum, two violins, viola violoncello, double bass, and percussion performed by AsianArt Ensemble 15 May 2023, Konzerthaus Berlin. All rights reserved.
She has received commissions from the National Endowment for the Arts, Fromm Music Foundation, Ensemble Modern, International Contemporary Ensemble, Theater Bielefeld, Theater Bonn, Theater und Orchester Heidelberg, Staatstheater Nürnberg, Nouvel Ensemble Moderne, Bayerischer Rundfunk, Saarländischer Rundfunk, and the Ernst von Siemens Music Foundation. She has been a visiting artist at ZKM, Deutsche Akademie Rom, Centro Tedesco di studi Veneziani, Akademie Schloss Solitude, and IRCAM.
Since receiving a doctorate from Harvard University, Obermüller has taught composition and co-directed the composition area at the University of New Mexico. Her music can be heard on CD (WERGO) and online at karolaobermueller.net.
Here is Karola Obermüller's Dehnung (2020) for daegeum, koto, gayageum, two violins, viola violoncello, double bass, and percussion performed by AsianArt Ensemble 15 May 2023, Konzerthaus Berlin. All rights reserved.
Peter Gilbert (Associate Professor of Music, University of New Mexico) has commissions and accolades from the Barlow Foundation, New Music USA, the Aaron Copland House, ZKM (Institut für Akustik und Musik), the Russolo Foundation, the Look & Listen Festival, the Third Practice Festival, and IMEB Bourges. He writes: “My music usually aspires to create a sonic architecture that helps us lose our sense of time completely and allows us to partake in a kind of more direct aural experience in search of passageways to transcendence.”
Gilbert’s music can be heard on numerous labels including New Focus Recordings and at petergilbert.net.
Here is Peter Gilbert's Soon as the Sun Forsook the Eastern Main performed by Emanuele Arciuli, piano from the album Burned into the Orange released by New Focus Recordings and available on Bandcamp.
Gilbert’s music can be heard on numerous labels including New Focus Recordings and at petergilbert.net.
Here is Peter Gilbert's Soon as the Sun Forsook the Eastern Main performed by Emanuele Arciuli, piano from the album Burned into the Orange released by New Focus Recordings and available on Bandcamp.
2024 Robb Concert
Below is the UNM Keller Hall live stream of the 2024 Robb Concert. Please note, this live stream was recorded for archival purposes. It is not a professionally produced recording. As a result, the audio and video may not be of the highest quality.
Composers Juantio Becenti, Monica Demarco, Doug Falk, Reiko Füting, Tania León, Christopher Orphal, John Donald Robb.
Performers Debra Ayers piano, Monica Demarco electronics, Kristin Ditlow piano, Sally Guenther cello, Daniel Lippel guitar, Jesse Tatum flute, Laura Tohe poet, Jacqueline Zander-Wall mezzo-soprano.
Program
Below is the UNM Keller Hall live stream of the 2024 Robb Concert. Please note, this live stream was recorded for archival purposes. It is not a professionally produced recording. As a result, the audio and video may not be of the highest quality.
Composers Juantio Becenti, Monica Demarco, Doug Falk, Reiko Füting, Tania León, Christopher Orphal, John Donald Robb.
Performers Debra Ayers piano, Monica Demarco electronics, Kristin Ditlow piano, Sally Guenther cello, Daniel Lippel guitar, Jesse Tatum flute, Laura Tohe poet, Jacqueline Zander-Wall mezzo-soprano.
Program
- Paisanos Semos! (1984) for solo guitar by Tania León (b. 1943)
- Heterogeneity (2021) for solo guitar by Doug Falk (b. 1981)
- Map Songs of the Sandhill Cranes poetry reading by Laura Tohe (b. 1952)
- Map Songs (2024) for mezzo-soprano, flute, cello, piano, and electronics by Monica Demarco (b. 1990), poetry by Laura Tohe ~ Robb Commission world premiere
- Fantasia on Songs from Los Pastores, Op. 40a (1964) for guitar and orchestra (reduction for guitar and piano) by John Donald Robb (1892-1989) dedicated to renowned Cuban guitarist and former UNM professor Héctor García (1930-2022). This performance is in celebration of Diane and Jim Bonnell's 60th wedding anniversary. The Bonnells are longtime patrons of the Robb Trust and Jim has served on its board of directors since 1999.
- The Empty (2024) for mezzo-soprano, flute, cello, and piano, dedicated to United States Department of the Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, by Juantio Becenti (b. 1984), text by Renee Podunovich from If There Is A Center, No One Knows Where It Begins ©2008 Used With Permission ~ Robb Commission world premiere
- (Less) Simple Studies in Microtonal Scordatura, Vol. 1 - Quartertones (I - V) (2024) for solo guitar by Chris Orphal (b. 1999) ~ world premiere
- wand-uhr: infinite shadows (Prélude) / Hine ma Tov (2013 / 2016) for solo guitar by Reiko Füting (b. 1970)
Archives
Robb Concert programs
2024 | 2023
John Donald Robb Composers' Symposium *
2023 | 2022 | 2021 (2021 addendum)
2020 | 2019 | 2018 | 2017 | 2016 | 2015 | 2014 | 2013 | 2012 | 2011
2010 | 2009 | 2008 | 2007 | 2006 | 2005 | 2004 | 2003 | 2002 | 2001
2000 | 1999 | 1998 | 1997 | 1996 | 1995 | 1994 | 1993 | 1992 | 1991
1990 | 1989 | 1988 | 1987 | 1986 | 1985 | 1984 | 1983 | 1982 | 1981
1980
* Robb Concert programs are included in Composers' Symposium commemorative booklets prior to 2023.
Robb Concert programs
2024 | 2023
John Donald Robb Composers' Symposium *
2023 | 2022 | 2021 (2021 addendum)
2020 | 2019 | 2018 | 2017 | 2016 | 2015 | 2014 | 2013 | 2012 | 2011
2010 | 2009 | 2008 | 2007 | 2006 | 2005 | 2004 | 2003 | 2002 | 2001
2000 | 1999 | 1998 | 1997 | 1996 | 1995 | 1994 | 1993 | 1992 | 1991
1990 | 1989 | 1988 | 1987 | 1986 | 1985 | 1984 | 1983 | 1982 | 1981
1980
* Robb Concert programs are included in Composers' Symposium commemorative booklets prior to 2023.